Primetime Golf Tonight

Ah yes, it's time for some primetime golf tonight. (At least it is here in the US.)  The ISPS HANDA World Cup of Golf is being played at the awesome Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia.

And as I understand it, the World Cup is back to being a team event. Not "including" a team component, but being a team event only. I think that's good news.



Here's the basic setup for this year's event, as posted at golf.com:

There are 28 two-man teams playing this event; the scoring is 72 holes of stroke play. They'll alternate rounds of foursomes and four-balls, and the winning pair will split the $2.56million winners' check.

None of the OWGR Top5 are playing. Jason Day, defending individual champ, is perhaps the most noticeable. (You didn't really expect to see Rory or DJ or Jordan or Henrik either, did you?) But this event still carries some weight with players like Adam Scott, Rickie Fowler, Hideki Matsuyama and Graeme McDowell, so there will be plenty of favorites to watch.

PGATOUR.com did a "featured groups" post which also lists all the players from each country, so you can find out when your favorite group tees off.

And here's GC's TV schedule as listed in the golf.com article.

• Wednesday - 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST
• Thursday - 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. EST, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST
• Friday - 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. EST, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST
• Saturday - 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. EST, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST
• Sunday - 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. EST 

Of course, GC will do some pre-game shows as well. Tonight's show starts at 7pm ET.

The player mix on some of the teams looks very interesting, so this should make for some good TV. I'm intrigued by the Italian team of Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manessaro, neither of whom is a power player. But in this format, I think they could be a real sleeper pick.